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d4rklamp

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 17, 2009
134
54
Hi, can anyone tell me what is "other" taking up my space in my iPhone? How can I decrease it? Is it documents & data form my apps or what?
 

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Hi, can anyone tell me what is "other" taking up my space in my iPhone? How can I decrease it? Is it documents & data form my apps or what?

usually it is app data you can scrub most of it by uninstalling and recycling apps it also could be bookmarks through safari, calendar reminders, etc.
 
Is there an actual way of getting rid of it? Cause I dont remember playing lots of games or anything. By checking iCloud in my documents and data, its only taking 30MB cause I disabled lots of stuff. But still, over 1GB of "Other" seems like a waste of space for me T_T
 
I've come to the conclusion that (I think) it has something to do with Music.

I've restored my phone several times now trying to figure out what is causing it to increase so much. Adding Apps, Photos, Movies, Podcast does nothing to increase 'Other', but the moment I start to sync my Music to my iPhone, it begins to increase quite a bit.

But 'Other' tends to increase a lot after the 2nd sync, and I did notice that the status bar says that its adding Album Covers (even though my tracks on my phone already have covers, it adds them again).
 
I also use to wonder what "other" was. I always thought it was cydia info and apps when I was jailbroken but i'm on a 4S now and "other" still reads 1.2GB
 
I also use to wonder what "other" was. I always thought it was cydia info and apps when I was jailbroken but i'm on a 4S now and "other" still reads 1.2GB

This is definitely an issue with iOS 5 (not Apps or Cydia) because throughout iOS 4.x and earlier, my other always hovered around .3 - .5, but as soon as I upgraded to iOS 5 it has doubled to over 1GB.
 
Your "other" is really high. My wires was showing up like that but after a restore, it was back down to 380mb
 
I also use to wonder what "other" was. I always thought it was cydia info and apps when I was jailbroken but i'm on a 4S now and "other" still reads 1.2GB

Exactly, I used to have an iPhone 3G as well and always thought it was the other Cydia partition. But this time, its an iPhone 4S and so far, no jailbreak for it. If music is the culprit, I will try to remove some album artwork and see how it goes. But seriously, very annoying to see over 1GB of "Other".
 
Exactly, I used to have an iPhone 3G as well and always thought it was the other Cydia partition. But this time, its an iPhone 4S and so far, no jailbreak for it. If music is the culprit, I will try to remove some album artwork and see how it goes. But seriously, very annoying to see over 1GB of "Other".

Did you restore from back-up?
 
When you got it did you restore from a previous iphone from itunes? And if you did was that iPhone Jailbroken?

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If you have a lot that can take up space.

Nope. Like I said, I have an iPhone 4S which cannot be jailbroken so far. And nope, I dont have voice memos. Just apps and musics as u can see in the screenshot I posted. The largest app I have is Infinity Blade, but does it seems fair for it to take up so much of the capacity? I do have other "big" apps, but even then, dont think their data take much. Seems like everytime I sync, the "Other" gets larger.
 
Your "other" is really high. My wires was showing up like that but after a restore, it was back down to 380mb

I plugged my phone into iTunes and mine is 1.08gb. My wife's is about the same now that she has 5.0.1
 
I did some more testing about this "Other" taking up space. Seems like it has something to do with musics.

First I completely erased everything on my iPhone 4S, then restored from back up, with all my musics, apps, etc. The "Other" was taking up 0.3GB only. For some reason, without me doing anything on my iPhone, I synced again. That's when I noticed my "Other" increasing. It's mainly when iTunes syncs artwork and genius data. There does not seem to be other way of getting rid of this "Other". Even deleting all musics and syncing back again does not change the "Other. If anyone else have a better idea, please rely.
 
I did some more testing about this "Other" taking up space. Seems like it has something to do with musics.

First I completely erased everything on my iPhone 4S, then restored from back up, with all my musics, apps, etc. The "Other" was taking up 0.3GB only. For some reason, without me doing anything on my iPhone, I synced again. That's when I noticed my "Other" increasing. It's mainly when iTunes syncs artwork and genius data. There does not seem to be other way of getting rid of this "Other". Even deleting all musics and syncing back again does not change the "Other. If anyone else have a better idea, please rely.

I am having this exact issue, same process (as I described in an earlier post above)

During the second sync (after all my music has already been added with Artwork, it re-adds them all again), this is what I see.

screenshot20111117at631.png
 
My theory is that "other" is bigger on IOS 5 due to the added backups to iCloud. Maybe it stores a copy of the backup on the phone that it transmits when you plug in and are connected to wifi. If I subtract the size of my backup from "other" I pretty much end up with what my pre IOS 5 "other" was.
 
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